JHCC

Very creative! I think we're going to have to call that a Porta-BOD!

Not him. Thanks anyway. Looks promising, thanks. I've sent him a message.

I just came into possession of two issues of "The Anvil's Ring" from 1982, originally sent to James D. W. Cooper of Memphis, TN. If anyone knows or knows about Mr. Cooper, it would be nice to get in touch and let him know what's happened to his magazines these 35 years later.

A non-smithing friend dropped these off on the porch: John R. Smith's Manual of Blacksmithing, John Lord Bacon's Elementary Forge Practice, Robert Harcourt's Elementary Forge Practice, Blacksmith Shop & Iron Forging (no author), Paul Hasluck's Bent Iron Work, Robert Heath's How To Forge Weld On A Blacksmith's Anvil For Those Who Have Diligently Tried And Failed (a pretty amazing title, if nothing else), Donald Streeter's Professional Smithing, and a couple of back issues of "The Anvil's Ring" (Volume Ten, numbers one (Spring) and two (Summer), 1982). Also copies of Weygers's The Complete Modern Blacksmith, Ted Tucker's Practical Projects for the Blacksmith, and Richardson's Practical Blacksmithing, but I already had those.

Here's the starting stock (or a piece just like it) and my torsion-bar hammer-eye drift.

One of the nice things about being a Northerner is that you can partake of and appreciate all kinds of barbecue without taking personally what is or isn't.

Ah, yes; now that I recall, you'd noted elsewhere: "From Matt B on Anvilfire 08/08/2007 12:10:21 EDT "'The current standard for rail anchors is 1040-1060 steel, depending upon manufacturer.'" Normalized, heated to critical, then water quenched about 3/4" of each end alternately and repeatedly until the center was dark red, then ran both faces to blue on retained heat.

This is the second hammer I've made, and the first in my home forge. The stock was a 5"-ish length cut from the end of a rail anchor, so probably 5160 or similar. It struck me that the little nub on the end was already about the right shape for a cross-peen, and I've been thinking about doing more cold work anyway (my son really wants a helmet). I had a friend over to try his hand at smithing, so I got him to strike for me for the punching, drifting, and fullering, all of which went quite well. Not shown are the stamped numbers on the underside, which were on the original anchor. I'm going to leave them there to confuse future archaeologists.

Jbradshaw, check out Mark Aspery's video on making stag horn hinges.

Welcome aboard!

An object lesson in "Think Before You Act". I made five significant errors of judgement in quick succession, and bled for it. 1. Having realized that the bit of sheet steel I was raising had some paint on it, I decided to hit it with the angle grinder with a cup brush. 2. I did not fasten it down, but held it in my hand. 3. I didn't take a second to put on a glove. 4. When the brush (inevitably) grabbed and spun the workpiece, I didn't instantly let it go. 5. At this point, bad decision zero came into play: I hadn't filed the edges of the workpiece smooth beforehand. Result: four parallel cuts across the pad of my thumb. Nothing deep enough to require stitches, and only one of which bled very much. I was very, very lucky that it wasn't worse. (On a side note, the store brand "Waterproof Strong Strips" from Discount Drug Mart (local Ohio drugstore chain) are easily the best Bandaid-type product I have ever used, especially for the price.)

Africana Studies, Cultural Theory, Political Philosophy, and Political Theory. One incredibly smart dude, and entirely down-to-earth. We were making Spinoza jokes while waiting for the steel to heat up.

Good gracious!

Most of the mica for lampshades is flakes laminated with shellac, since they don't have to withstand the high heat one finds in a stove. One nice thing about those, though, is that if you heat them gently, you can bend them into curved shapes that are impossible with the solid mica as used in stoves.

One of my friends (a professor at the college where I work) came over to learn how to swing a hammer. I may not have taught him particularly well, but he did make a nice S-hook. While he was here, I got him to strike for me while I made a raising hammer out of a piece of rail anchor.

Forgot to mention that this was the first sheet metal work I've ever done. I likes.

Backscratchers!

Cut an old 5# dumbbell into halves and ground one into a domed raising stake for the vise, and messed around with raising some sheet brass and aluminum(?) into random shapes, with a bit of dishing thrown in. Fun!

Probably not. Stoves like that are designed to heat up water to just below the boiling point, not to quickly and reliably get metal up to forging temperatures.

Just because it has a drain in the bottom doesn't mean you have to make a bottom-blast forge. Put a 2 inch layer of dirt across the bottom (including the drain), punch or cut a hole in the side, and make a side-blast.

Restocking: And the new PPE arrived.

Or as I've heard it put: hot metal acts like clay. You just don't mold it with your thumb.

I suspect that part of the decision was that Yellin would have done the work in his own West Philadelphia shop and might well not have wanted to disrupt his production by moving men, materials, and machinery elsewhere. The Pitcairns wanted to have all the work done on-site; note that all the stone and stained glass work was done in workshops at Bryn Athyn. I believe these became the genesis for the craft programs at Bryn Athyn College. I suppose it's also possible that Yellin might not have wanted to invest time and money in having his staff retrain to work in monel, especially for a one-of job. That's just a guess, though.

Now I'm wondering if I could attach a nipple to a Mason jar lid and run it off my vacuum sealer from the kitchen....

Depends on the jewelry. Have you seen the bracelets that elephants are wearing this season?